With growing world demand and difficulties with existing rubber plantation monocultures, there is an urgent world need for alternative, less labor-intensive sources of natural rubber as rubber is a strategic material which is irreplaceable in a variety of applications ranging from elastic bands to vehicle tires.
For example, many tires made today use natural rubber latex that is harvested by hand in small cups from Brazilian rubber trees whose bark has been deliberately wounded. A major portion of the latex rubber that is harvested is solidified to solid blocks of bulk rubber and sold as solid rubber to use in numerous commercial applications as stated above. This process has not changed in over a century. This laborious effort is carried out almost exclusively in Southeast Asia, where economic development and environmental costs are increasingly making labor availability and costs more expensive, and the business model less viable.
The monoculture of the Hevea brasiliensis tree (i.e., the rubber tree) is susceptible to devastating diseases and blights, which have occurred primarily in its native Brazilian habitat. Additionally, cultivation of Hevea has led to a number of environmentally degrading side effects, including the burning of rubberwood for energy needs, and the untreated discharge of latex rubber processing effluents.
World consumption of bulk natural rubber is forecast to increase four percent annually to over 30 million metric tons in 2019, mainly due to the growth in Asian motor vehicle production. China is already the leading world consumer of natural rubber.
Russian dandelion plants (Taraxacum kok-saghyz, or TKS) and other rubber bearing non-Hevea plants are one alternative source of rubber. Methods for aqueous extraction and separation of both natural rubber and carbohydrate sugar from roots of rubber-bearing dandelion plants have been disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 9,611,363 and 9,346,924.